1) While I don't know what direction these new units will go I would just like to give a caution against them becoming some sort of "ultimate" units. Ultimate units are generally not fun to get to, not fun to play with and not fun to play against it. A good example of this is the mothership in Starcraft 2, that started as an ultimate unit in development (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rl4Co57XFbE) but after the beta and testing it it was reduced to a low-health, low-damage spellcaster unit with an impressive appearance and attack animation that now just looks ridiculous considering its base stats.

2)

Quote

Yes, more reasons for comms not to stay in comm.

Shouldn't we go the opposite direction? Comms curretnly spawn either out of necessity (repairing shield, dealing with demo runners when no one's home, etc.) or out of boredom in lategame when there are nothing else to build.Since the question of buffs have came up, there could be ways to incentivize comms using buffs by making comm buffs cheaper compared to self buffs. Beasts could also get a buff (from entropy) that teleports a friendly unit home healed-up to defend against demo runners.

3) The discussion about siege camping had a short revival recently, and some good ideas has been brought up in the past and in the current discussions. Before implementing other changes I would like to have more discussions about it until at least we can have a consensus about what ideas to test out and what ideas should be rejected.

Feature idea, to make the models more accepted by the community: Add physics (gravity and movement) to the chest part of the female model.

No sexually harm intended to anyone offended

Brad, I agree with you one point 1. Theres no wish for skill-removing units (OP units) in savage.

On point 2: Due to the sinking player mass, I can agree on that such a direction (incentivize commanders to leave commander seat) is a good choice, but my faith in the game, and that it can attract new players, implicitly means I think we should aim for implementations which work will with big player bases (full servers, basically). So, I dont think we should go that direction. Its against a commanders purpose and role to despawn, and repair shit in his base (it also removes teamwork...).

On point 3: Complete consensus will be hard to reach, but I agree that consesus should be made. However, we should differ between consensus in the community, and consensus in the newerth council (behemoth sprint for example, not many people saw the purpose of adding that, but newerth council did apparently ). (Which is why we have these test weeks going on right now, I guess).

@Bullet: The consensus on Behe sprint was not to add it, but to test it. Which is in itself, novelty, because there has never been an open approach to testing changes before, since vets cry "Murder!" every time something changes. And I can list like 30 changes or new additions that did not break the game.

@Brad, @kLLikThey will surely not be dominators, not even heroes. They'd be leaders - one per team, obviously, so no Ophelia-like armies .

The plan is this to use these unique units to address some racial shortcomings that are present in late games. As the working theory goes:-they should be researchable after lvl3 units.-they should only be assignable to 1 player, by the comm (a-la buffs)-they should get fixed sets of support skills (like healers)

-their purpose is NOT that of bolstering current strategies-of-choice of each race:--Jaraziah would not help defend, or protect shield towers more, making killing human bases even harder.--Ophelia would not help buff the sac rushes or siege lameness (behe spawn point camping, summ whoring).

What we should aim towards is making them support units that help humans stay on the offensive more, and improve beasts' chances to deal with reloc-whoring. In a smart way.

Ophelia could: raise the effectiveness of comando-squads; getting back home when a siege rush popped at Lair bd; increase squad mobility on the battlefield; potentate late game mass sacs on bases with untouchable shields.Jaraziah could: help establish footholds at beasts bases; carrying out successful squad demorunning; help protect siege units shooting enemy buildings; promote squad diversity; assist chaps in some way that makes them useful .

That said, they should not change the game core in any way, like messing with damage amounts, melee speeds, armor - which makes melee the exact science that it is. But they should act like catalysts - flesh and bone leaders worth following.

They should not change the game much, period. None of the new things did. Outpost/Burrow, Balloon/Guardian, Conflux/Bus, Upgraded Outpost/Burrow, Altars/Caches, they're all NICHE objects and they're all inferior to existing, all-around tech. Their applicability is really limited compared to established tactics and strategies. They are not used to their full potential, though. Yet.

@DaemonRegarding consensus on behe sprint:Fair enough I guess, I guess its a first for anything, testing included

Regarding Jarezhiah/Ophelia:- Can i go crazy with skill suggestions in the rebalancing section? --> Why not post the entire jerazhiah/ophelia unit in the rebalancing suggestion with how you think about implementing it ? (not critique, but more of a "I wanna have my say about it aswell ")

Btw, will ophelia have leap? I mean... a human leaping looks weird, good luck with animating that

Regarding Jarezhiah/Ophelia:- Can i go crazy with skill suggestions in the rebalancing section? --> Why not post the entire jerazhiah/ophelia unit in the rebalancing suggestion with how you think about implementing it ? (not critique, but more of a "I wanna have my say about it aswell ")

Post them here, but don't get your hopes up . Who know where we'll go with this leaders thing. Or that we won't drop it.

1)A good example of this is the mothership in Starcraft 2, that started as an ultimate unit in development (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rl4Co57XFbE) but after the beta and testing it it was reduced to a low-health, low-damage spellcaster unit with an impressive appearance and attack animation that now just looks ridiculous considering its base stats.

It's actually a bad example.Mothership is stronger than other units, and is used primarily for its skills. Especially in the base game it was used to wipe out entire enemy armies in a single blow, which was later nerfed in following expansions. Even now it still has skills, a passive AoE invis, and high stats. And now even comes with a pre-form known as "Core" which protects Protoss from early rushes. Still strong late and now even useful early.

I think your point is that having an ultimate unit that dominates no matter what you throw at it - and thus breaks the current gameplay - is undesired and is likely to be nerfed into uselessness quickly. Potentially even turning it into a battle around the OP units instead of a match of Savage.

The mothership is a very useful unit, but compared to what it was originally designed to do it's nothing but a high hp spellcaster. It's weaker than any other capital ship but costs way more. Its size and attack animation is in huge contrast with its actual combat ability, which is horrible.Compare it to the SC1 arbiter.As for your last paragraph, yes, that's what I meant and I'm glad the development is not going into that direction.

I'd like to credit Shagroth for the amazing idea of making Ophelia and Jaraziah comm-only units (NPCs) with skills that can be leveled up, so that comms choose which way they go. It's the perfect way to maintain the connection comm=leader, both on and off-field. Another awesome thing he suggested is an aura of halving siege damage to units.

Other ideas rolled around were:-making it easier for comms to use the leaders as NPC (liek workers), with right-click target activated skills, as opposed to spawning and using them in their FPS mode where skills can miss due to having to properly aim at their targets.-capping the amount of level-ups so not all skills can be maxed out.-forcing the comms to spawn only as these leaders - bye bye siege spawn!-a skill per tech line-skills that boost the endurance of forward spawn points (like Jara doing a sort of a magnetic energy channeling that turns him into a weaker, walking shield tower).

I wonder what Anita Sarkeesian would have to say to your depiction of Ophelia Seriously if you're planning on making Savage great again, her opinion might actually matter once Savage becomes popular. Not sure in which way though.

I think those units should be bound to the commanders only. Everything else wouldn't make much sense to me (as they are actually playing the role of the racial leaders). If it was up to me I'd set Jaraziahs stats (health, range, attack speed, etc) somewhere between Savage and Legionaire. I'm not sure if Ophelia should inherit beast abilities such as leap and melee weapons as she's still human.

About this whole buff issue to enhance versatile strategies in late games, I think burrows, outposts, transports and whatever that moving beast gate is called as well as field the commander menu (does anyone but me actually know about this? everybody still seems surprised when I use it) are doing the job already. Just give the community a little bit more time to adapt.

I'd make those two units just a cool gimmick adding a little more variety to the every day battlefield without any super special skills trying to compensate anything. Also they would be an effective way of keeping comms from spawning as siege which I admittedly get tempted to as well from time to time.

Edit:Damnit I just realized I'm 3 months late on this topic. Is it still on the table?

I wonder what Anita Sarkeesian would have to say to your depiction of Ophelia Seriously if you're planning on making Savage great again, her opinion might actually matter once Savage becomes popular. Not sure in which way though.

Okay but... but... she's way more dressed than the original! Purists gonna fry me for that!